ESME Think Tank Closing; Donations Go to ME Rituximab Project

ProHealth deeply regrets sharing the following news, from a dedicated group that has indeed made a great difference for ME.

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To the ME/CFS Community

The board members and volunteers of ESME would like to inform you that we will be closing ESME (the European Society for ME) before the end of 2012.

ESME’s website [http://esme-eu.com] will be accessible for approximately 1 year, but no new information will be added. The donations that were given to ESME will be given to a project to test Rituximab, as we believe this project has the potential to benefit all ME patients.

Since 2007, almost all of the work in the organization has been done by volunteers who are also ME patients and it is simply too much for us. We have also been unable to raise enough money for the Think Tank panel meetings, seminars and doctor-training workshops that we had planned. We have therefore decided to close ESME.

Several of the ESME volunteers will continue to do work in the ME field and in this way we can still profit from the network and knowledge we have built up in the last 5 years.

The ESME Think Tank panel [experts representing eight countries] will not exist after ESME closes but we know these doctors will continue to do great work in the ME field, so their knowledge will not be lost. Thank you panel members for the time you gave us and for the dedication you show to ME patients.

We would like to thank our Norwegian sponsors Oktan, for our logo, Norsk kunder, for our website, and SparBank, for sponsoring the Think Tank meeting in Stavanger. ESME would not have existed without your help.

We would also like to say a very heartfelt thanks to our Belgian sponsors reshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and to Belfius Bank (formerly Dexia Bank) for their wonderful volunteer help throughout the years.

We appreciate the incredible support we have received from ME patients, doctors and organizations since the start of ESME. Through ESME we have made contacts and found friends from around the globe and it is inspiring to know that there is a large network of people working towards the goals of understanding and effectively treating ME.

We feel that these goals are much closer than they were 5 years ago. We hope that in some small way, the existence of ESME helped encourage the world to think about ME from a scientific point of view.